University of Tennessee Athletics
SEC Nation Goes Live Thanks To Vol Spirit
October 09, 2015 | Football
By Brian Rice
UTSports.com
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. -- SEC Nation was scheduled to air live from the campus of the University of South Carolina on Saturday. But when the opening bars of the theme song play on Saturday morning, it will be the familiar sight of Tennessee’s Ayers Hall that serves as the backdrop for the SEC Network’s weekly pregame show.
With the historic flooding affecting every aspect of life in Columbia and across South Carolina, the show needed a new location for the week. Tennessee was ready to step in.
But it takes a great deal more than rerouting trucks and rolling out the welcome mat. Planning sessions that normally occur over a three-week cycle played out in less than three days, ensuring a seamless, if hectic, transition to when the show goes live.
“It was through mass cooperation with everyone at Tennessee that we were able to put this all together,” said Joe Caricone, senior operations producer for ESPN. “Without that cooperation, we never could have done it on such a quick turnaround.”
It all had to come together quickly. As the effects of the flooding in South Carolina became evident, the SEC Network began to weigh its options. David Elliott, Tennessee’s assistant athletics director for event management, got the final call at 10:00 a.m. Tuesday morning, the show was coming to town.
“Having done it last year, we had a really good game plan and we all pitched in and jumped in together,” Elliott said. “We put together a meeting Tuesday afternoon with all of our facilities folks, our athletics facility folks, our event staff, telephone services, the whole University Volunteer spirit rallied. We put our game plan in motion and got everything together and got that game plan working. We were ready for them at 6:30 a.m. Thursday morning and here we are Friday afternoon with the set ready to go.
SEC Nation sets a tentative plan for the season that was scheduled to bring the show to town later this season. The network typically plans at least three weeks ahead to allow the host school, the production crew and the on-air time to plan and prepare. Once the decision was made to make a move, the network’s crew mobalized as well. It aligned with Tennessee’s plan so that both sides were ready to go when the trucks rolled in Thursday morning.
“We have a large plan that we put forward,” Caricone said. “We spend Thursday of each week just setting up the things you see, the set, the perimeter, the trucks, all of that takes one whole day. We’ve been here before and had an idea of the setup and David Elliott from UT has been incredibly helpful in making sure all of that came together very easily.”
SEC Nation analyst Marcus Spears was sympathetic to the plight in Columbia after he witnessed his home state of Louisiana deal with the effects of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. He was also proud of the way his crew and Tennessee came together to accommodate the move.
“It’s a good thing for the guys that set up for the weekend because it shows how good they are,” Spears said. “It’s a tremendous transition when you have everything planned and set up to be in one city. It’s seamless for us. Respecting the situation of the people in South Carolina, they aren’t worried about SEC Nation, they are trying to put the pieces of their lives back together.”
Fellow analyst Tim Tebow said changing his travel schedule was just a blip on his radar compared to the realities that the flood victims have had to deal with. “For us, it’s easy,” Tebow said. “Our thoughts and prayers are with them. What is really cool is how many people have supported and rallied together around the families affected. It’s amazing to see, in tragedy, people rise up.”
Through Tennessee’s effort, the SEC Nation show will go on, live from Knoxville.
“We talk about the Volunteer Sprit and that’s what we are all about at the University of Tennessee,” Elliott said. “Everybody does their part and pitches in. It’s a true team effort and it says a lot about the cooperative effort that we get fro everyone at the University of Tennessee.”
